Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Jim Caldwell. / Getty Images

In Jim Caldwell, the Lions believe they've found the steady hand to stabilize a shaky team. / 2011 photo from Getty Images

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There’s nothing outwardly charismatic about Jim Caldwell. Hearts don’t flutter at his presence. He doesn’t dazzle. He doesn’t excite, nor does he get terribly excited, maintaining a steady emotional equilibrium that makes you wonder whether there’s actually something beating within his chest.

The Lions lacked that calming demeanor last season, panicking rather than persevering as they blew a string of fourth-quarter leads. The Lions think they’ve found the steady hand to smoothly steer a shaky ship.

That’s hardly a ringing endorsement, but that’s all this decision merits. Considering the franchise’s futile history in identifying their first choice, can the second choice fare any worse?

Nobody’s asking for much from the 58-year-old Caldwell. Just win a playoff game for only the second time in 57 years. Just develop a perennial Pro Bowl quarterback. Just make everyone in this football-crazed, championship-starved city think that the Lions might have finally stumbled upon the correct head coaching mix of discipline, design and demeanor.

Caldwell gets two years to get it done.

The Lions aren’t a reclamation project. Not this time. They aren’t as lavishly talented as some might argue, but they’re better than what their second-half collapses the last two seasons suggested. Caldwell is here to finish what his predecessor, Jim Schwartz, started. Schwartz got the Lions to believe they could win big games.

It’s up to Caldwell to convince them they can win big games.

The Lions’ first task is convincing everyone that Caldwell was their primary target and not a desperate lunge to save face after failing to secure their top candidate — new Tennessee Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt.

The Lions’ front office resembled the team in the last seven games of last season. They had the fourth-quarter lead in the Whisenhunt sweepstakes. They had the owner’s plane gassed up Monday morning ready to pick up Whisenhunt in San Diego and bring him back to Detroit for a coronation.

But Lions president Tom Lewand and general manager Martin Mayhew couldn’t hold the lead.

They had better be right with Caldwell, because neither will get another chance to hire the next head coach if the Lions’ storm consumes Caldwell’s calm and digs yet another head coaching grave.

After the embarrassment of losing Whisenhunt, the Lions should have reopened the interview process. Would it have killed them to wait another week to talk to two of the hotter offensive coordinators still looking for that first NFL head coaching job — San Francisco’s Greg Roman and Denver’s Adam Gase? Why not talk with New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels?

It’s not as though the Lions were competing with other teams for Caldwell’s services. He wasn’t going anywhere — except possibly the unemployment line if you believe some of the whispers out of Baltimore that head coach John Harbaugh strongly considered replacing Caldwell at offensive coordinator.

Instead, the Lions panicked. Instead of patiently re-evaluating the selection process, the Lions confirmed the No.2 guy on their wish list as quickly as possible. They’ll publicly spin it as Caldwell being the head coach they had in mind all along. They’ll sell it as a front office properly executing an exhaustive search.